Archives for October 2008

With the election upon us, I thought it was timely to send out this reminder regarding your obligations as an employer to provide time off to employees for purposes of voting.

Under AZ law, an employee is entitled to paid time off, on the day of the election, if there are less than 3 consecutive hours between the opening of the polls and the employee’s start time or between the end of an employee’s shift and the closing of the polls. In that case, the employee may leave work for that period of time (either at the beginning or end of the shift) that will provide the employee with a total of 3 consecutive hours to vote.

In Maricopa County, polling places are open from 6:00am to 7:00pm on November 4th. Therefore, if you have an employee who is scheduled to work from 7am to 5pm, the employee can leave at 4pm. If an employee is scheduled to work from 8am to 6:30pm, you have the option of letting the employee come in at 9am and paying the employee for one hour of time for voting, or letting them go in the afternoon at 4:00 pm and paying the employee for 2 ½ hours. An employee must apply for voting leave prior to the day of the election.